pretty sure i have DID

Ragaire

New member

hi. i've been fairly certain i have did since 2013 or so. on and off, i will occasionally "forget" about this; i'll ignore all my symptoms and go on trying to live a singular life. i guess i suppress it or something, or maybe something just takes the memories away for a time. but then i remember all the hints again and it all comes back to me.

i experienced physical/verbal/emotional abuse as a child and have diagnosed ptsd. when i was young i had a hyperactive imagination (still do) and was prone to day dreaming and making imaginary friends. i remember i would be so scared sometimes that i would forget who i was and where i was. sometimes i would make imaginary friends because i was scared, so extremely scared, of.... i don't know what. or who. i try to say what it was, and my memory looks like static. but i know i was scared of something, every night, in my house, and that every night i would try to make something protect me. i was too docile and scared and fragile so i made up beasts in my mind who could sit at the foot of my bed and stay vigil while i slept. that was the only way i could ever go to sleep. that, and have the tv blasting at all times. i always wanted a guardian because of how helpless i felt

suddenly, at some point in late elementary school, i changed. well, it wasn't "me" that changed. i stayed the same, as docile and cowardly as ever. but there were these times where it was like a switch would flip (i have always described it this way), and i would get shoved out of my body by a different presence. suddenly, "my body" would scream and launch itself into physical fights at any perceived threat, and i would watch. it was like playing a first person video game, and then suddenly be thrown into a cut scene. the screen looked the same. i could still see everything i normally see, from the same perspective (wasnt outside my body or anything), but it was like watching a cut scene instead of playing as the character. i had no control. this happened a lot growing up. i'd be sweet and shy and unassuming, playing with my friends or sitting quietly at recess, and then i'd hear footsteps behind me and the switch would flip. i'd turn around and pin the person to the ground, and scream at them not to touch me, even though they never intended to. once "i" pinned someone to the ground and growled at them to stay away from me just because they wanted a book i had. at my house once, i distinctly remember my friend jokingly shoving me, and me whipping around and throwing him to the floor and holding him there by his wrists. when he asked me to stop by using my name, "i" growled at him and said "that's not my name! stop calling me that!". the real me just watched this happen, and didn't understand what i was seeing.

this persisted into adolescence too. although for the most part i was able to blend into society a little bit better with age and the shifts got either less frequent or less obvious, there were exceptions to this. once i was walking in the woods and my very close friend was behind me. i knew that he was there, of course; we'd been walking together for a while. but out of nowhere-- i still cannot explain what triggered this-- something shifted. i picked up a tree branch, and went absolutely ballistic. i just started hitting him with the branch, over and over, and i dont know why, and i couldnt stop it. it was just happening. my body was full of this horrific rage and fear and desire to make him go away, but it wasn't "my" desire. it felt like the desire of something else that took possession of me that i couldnt control. i didn't stop until i was placed in a head lock

i think this has happened a lot in my life. sometimes i remember it and sometimes i dont. as a person, i have been noted to be extremely calm, sweet, non-violent and empathetic. i cannot even kill bugs, and am much more likely to feel sad than to feel angry over something. when i am angry, i use that anger to be passionate in my communication. i will express my anger with words, and verbal arguments to support my point. but when "i" get into these states, the anger is very different. it is very raw, and primal, and completely unregulated, and physical. i have often equated it to the feeling of being pushed out of the way of a moving car. these incidents feel like someone noble pushed me out of the way of a threat, and onto the ground, and i'm watching from the ground, looking up at him while he takes over and fends off all the threats. even when there are no threats. and especially when there actually is a threat.

with all this in mind, i have always been very attracted to stories about people being protected. like princesses with knights, or children being protected by spirits. those stories have always felt very true to me. as if i can relate to them, even though my entire life no one has ever protected me from anything. i even feel this way about my memories sometimes. sometimes i can't remember what happened to me as a child at all. even at my best of times, a lot of memories are obscured or missing, and i can feel their void in my mind. sometimes all i can say is that "something bad" happened to me. other times i can be a lot more specific, but it feels like i'm "borrowing" or "stealing" those memories from another place, against someone's wishes

i don't remember how this happened at all, but eventually i communicated with this presence in my mind. i started becoming aware that there was something or someone in my head who isn't me, but who is "me". a second "me" to communicate with, and that i've been sharing a life with for a long time. i always had a picture of a big black wolf in my mind when i thought about him. i don't think he always had a name, but at some point, i gave him the name "lyall", because it means "guardian wolf" and has the same amount of letters as my name. i know this sounds really crazy and i dont know when it happened or why. i honestly feel really ashamed about this, and have never told anyone about it/him because it makes me feel crazy. but i have always had lyall, and he's had a name since i was like 16 or so (i am now 21).

sometimes i am in better communication with him than other times. sometimes he will be gone for a long period of time. sometimes, as i get more stressed or as i get closer to triggers (ex: holidays), he will be around a lot more. "i" will sometimes become very irritable and unstable. "i" will start having these invasive feelings that everyone i know is unworthy of knowing me and that i shouldn't trust them. "i" will become overwhelmed by the sensation that i need to push everyone who knows me away, because they will only ever exist to hurt me, and be very hateful and snappy to anyone who approaches me at that time because "i" believe that they are unworthy of me, and that they have only ever wronged me. but i don't actually identify with those feelings at all. i have a pretty low self worth, so i would never believe something like "i'm too good for these people". but thats the exact kind of thought process i'll fall into sometimes, or that will sneak into my head with this burning rage from some corner of my mind separate from me. this has lead to very unstable relationships with the people i love the most, much to my dismay.

sometimes i will forget about lyall. well, i never *actually* forget, i just force myself to stop thinking about it and take care of a lot of things by myself, because i hate the idea that i might have did... i already have a lot of things going on with me that isolate me from everyone else i know, and make me feel very detached from "normal life". the idea of telling anyone i know in real life about this suspicion of mine is horrifying and paralyzing. i am so scared about letting this secret out of me, that sometimes i try to blast through my life so that i never have to think about it. but it always comes back to me.

it usually comes back to me because at some point or another i am forced to become aware of this feeling i have deep inside me. this feeling that some part of me in my mind is rotting. although i have a normal life with normal friends and normal jobs, i have this sense that theres someone in me who is being racked with pain and suffering and grief and anger and horrific memories. it's like theres this tornado deep in my mind. except its not me. it feels like someone else is in here and he's constantly screaming, or being thrown against walls, or covered in blood, and i'm just doing my own thing while that happens over and over. i will very often forget about my ptsd even though i always have fairly consistent physical symptoms of it. it forget because i cant always remember what happened, or the pain, or what it means to me now. but then there are other times where i can feel the tornado much closer to me, or in front of me, taking control of me while i watch, angry and screaming and punching holes in doors and walls, and i don't think that's me. but of course, it affects me too, and makes me shut down and have to re-evaluate myself and my life all over again

i know this could be a lot of things. it could just be my ptsd or my hyperactive imagination or bpd or something. but the reason that i think it is DID, is because i do not want it to be DID. ptsd? bpd? i could EASILY live with either of those two things (and do, in the case of ptsd). if anything, they make me feel MORE human, because they give me reasons for the way i feel, and are much easier for other people in my life to understand. right? the one thing i DONT want to have is DID. yet that's the thing my mind always comes back to. why would my mind continuously revisit this if i hate it so much? if i don't want this to be the truth? why can't i just live comfortably in the idea that i have ptsd and a silly mind and that's why all this stuff happens? i can't, because it never feels like the answer. i know that there are walls in my head, i can feel them, sometimes more and more every single day, and i try to break them but something always holds me back. all the time, i feel memories and emotions that are not my own, i see myself move and speak in ways i can't understand, and i can't take the fake answers i make up for myself anymore. it's just not enough anymore. i'm tired of running away from the only thing that has ever made any sense to me and i don't know what to do anymore

i'm sure a lot of you will say that i don't have DID and god do i hope you're right. but trust me, there's nothing you can say to me i havent already said to myself in an attempt to make this all end. what would be more helpful is how to handle all these walls and all these blanks in my memories and all this horrible fears i have so that i can have some hope of exploring this possibility and understanding myself and what happened to me and what being my life has been shared with this whole time. i know today i'm determined to follow through on this and explore it all, but i'm worried that tomorrow or the day after it will be too scary for me and i'll try to suppress it or have my memories wiped all over again. i just want to try and figure this stuff out, and communicate with myself and whatever else might be inside me, and stop having my life be so unstable and weird and disconnected from myself and my desires and my intentions. please help me

SunnyDaze

Well-known member

Hi there.Nobody here can tell you whether you have DID or not.Only a professional can tell you that.

There's many different things it could be,you're right about that.Many illnesses include dissociation and even other personalities.Whatever it is,or may not be,I do feel therapy will help you work through all of it.

When I was diagnosed with DID(I have since recovered from it though)I was shocked because I absolutely had no clue.It wasn't something I had ever even considered.I knew something was going on but I seriously never imagined it would be that.I was very upset when I was diagnosed and I thought my therapist was wrong and was a quack.So even if that is what you have,know that it's a diagnosis that nobody wants to receive and it's a very hard one to accept.

It's also not something that can be diagnosed right away either.It takes time for a professional to figure it out and there's a lot that goes into being diagnosed.

AliceinWonderland

Well-known member

I don't have DID, but I have mental health conditions arising from trauma. I've been reading some of this person's blog, she has DID. She also writes about trauma and shame, which I've found helpful and insightful. Might be useful to you?

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